Energy Efficiency Scheme Evaluation 2024/25
An evaluation of the Energy Efficiency Scheme, part of the wider 2023 VCSE Cost of Living Programme.
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Details
In 2023, the UK Government announced the VCSE Cost of Living (CoL) Programme, a £101.5m support package provided by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to help frontline delivery organisations with cost of living challenges. Part of the support package was the Energy Efficiency Scheme (EES), a £25.53m scheme to support voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations with their energy efficiency.
The scheme ran from December 2023 to July 2025 and supported organisations with independent energy assessments (IEAs) to identify energy-saving opportunities and capital grants to fund the recommended measures. The scheme was administered by Groundwork UK working with Groundwork Trusts, Energy Saving Trust, Centre for Sustainable Energy, Locality, and Social Investment Business.
The evaluation of the EES was undertaken by Ecorys UK in partnership with Dr Sam Hampton, Dr Katherine Sugar, and Professor Dan van der Horst.
The aim of the evaluation was to understand:
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How both the IEAs and capital grants were delivered;
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What the outcomes and impacts were for IEA recipients and capital grant holders; and
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The expected economic costs and benefits of the EES.
The evaluation took a mixed-methods approach, including analysis of management information, interviews with programme partners, independent energy assessors and VCSE representatives, two online participant surveys, and Bayesian Process Tracing as the theory-based approach to assess the impacts.
The report sets out key process evaluation findings and early insight into the impact and value for money of the fund. Some of the early insights from the evaluation were:
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The EES helped funded organisations to improve their knowledge of energy efficient practices;
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Capital measures were expected to reduce future energy consumption;
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Capital measures were expected to lead to energy bill savings and research participants anticipated that these savings would subsequently be redirected to service delivery; and
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Most research participants representatives expected the capital measures to support their organisation’s financial resilience and service delivery.
The evaluation originally ran from November 2023 to March 2025. Further impact and value-for-money evaluation is underway until March 2026. A final impact and economic evaluation report will be published in 2026.